Score Editor - Purple Line Question

[Music Spirit]

Anyone doing instrumental parts on Logic Score Editor will be familiar with the need to set the line layout and staves to the minimum number of pages. In this regard there are three areas where adjustments can be made:

 

1/ The yellow lines which show the margins of the page - they can be moved around to expand or contract the page space vertically or horizontally

 

2/ The Size of a Staff style ( though I keep that pretty standard) but in particular the distance between the staves can be adjusted.

 

3/ The purple line - which seems to separate the Header Area ( with the behaviour of Text dragged into the top of Page 1 obeying different rules to text on the rest of the part) and the shifting of which can move the entire Stave system for that part up or down the page

 

* * *

 

I have only just notice though that if I have several instrumental parts up on two monitors - that if I shift the purple line when displaying Margins - that the entire stave system moves on every part? Which is actually not what I want as different parts for different instruments have different layouts. Often it is a very fine adjustment to keep the part to 2 or 3 pages when a small lengthening of the spacing causes the final bars to expand into a further page with a lot of useless blank space below.

 

When I have finished a given part I will keep it in a separate locked Screenset with the lock symbol ( purple or gold) off - which means that the Screenset does not respond to other regions selected in the Arrange.

 

But there was a behaviour I could never explain until now - that sometimes the finished part with all the careful spacing and line breaks would be messed up ...despite it being preserved in a locked screenset that I wasnt working on.

 

I now realise why many parts which I thought were finished ( ie completed set carefully with line and page breaks) get messed up when working on another part - because I have moved that purple line to adjust the spacing of the chart for a different instrument ....

 

Can anyone explain why the purple line behaves like this - and if it is possible to disable it from operating globally on all instrumental parts?

[Plowman]

"... and if it is possible to disable it from operating globally on all instrumental parts?"

No. It's instructive (but not a solution) to keep the Project Settings > Score > Global window open when adjusting, even if you're mousing the margin lines in Score. When dragging the purple line for a Score Set formatted to "Parts," sadly, there's just one column, and one size fits all (even if they don't fit).

 

What you describe is a real trap. There is a strong impulse to tidy up Parts before printing, and dragging the purple line is very handy -- but what it's doing to the other parts (especially those that have already been proofed) is not observed until the pages exit the printer.

[Music Spirit]

Very interesting and helpful comment thanks Plowman! And what you write confirms my actual experience. Since I wrote that post however, I have changed my workflow, realising that it is actually a myth that it is somehow 'safe' to park a finished instrumental part in a locked screenset.

I have now been experiment with keeping all instrumental parts at least for a similar group of instruments like say - horn section - in the same Screenset so that you can easily TAB through to check any changes in finished parts as you work on the next part.

 

So for example in an arrangement with Tpt, Sax, Tbn - I will keep work on the Tpt part and finish it. Then Pull up the Sax and have the Tpt part as a model on a separate monitor. Which you cant do if it was on a separate screenset.

 

What would be really amazing is if you could save as a 'template' for a given arrangement the line breaks and formatting with global symbols, because you would pretty much want the bar numbers, line breaks of each part to be exactly in the same place on a given page if possible.

 

I still find that Logic Score Editor 'forgets' too easily and randomly the layout and line breaks of a part. And so I find myself redoing them all the time.. and being very careful to print to pdf once a part is finished before continuing on the next part. ( Still leave the problem that if you want to redo that part it may have changed necessitating more time consuming formatting).

 

Often when one has already made a Scoreset and given it a name in the 'Filter' - you might think that you could reliably pull up all the settings you had made as part of Scoreset but often you have to start from scratch....

[Music Spirit]

Just to add a further observation - with several Instrumental parts open slightly offset on another screen so that I can see the purple lines on each part, I now notice that sometimes dragging the Purple line on one part affects the others and sometimes it does not.

 

Does the purple line relate to a specific Scoreset or a Staffstyle - ie if you are using Bass Clef Staffstyle for say Trombone as well as Bass - or using a Bb Staffstyle with slashes ( as in the convention of showing chord sequences for improvising) for both Trumpet and Tenor Saxophone parts - this could cause the entire Layout and Line Break to move in another part you are not working on .. when you drag the Purple line ... what does the Purple line actually relate to..?

 

Does anyone else have experience of this?

[Music Spirit]

PS I made a video explaining the Problem

[Music Spirit]

Best illustration of the problem:

[Atlas007]

Using different score sets might do the trick?

[Plowman]

As noted, there are only two settings for the header (purple line): part or score. In the video, I suspect “tenor sax” is assigned to setting A, and trumpet, alto sax and lead sheet to setting B. The setting doesn’t matter — the key is, the purple line follows all displays according to its type (score or part), and there can be no independent adjustment of the purple line beyond that.

 

A two inch first page header on anything marked “score” in score sets will be two inches for *every* score set marked “score.” And anything marked “part” will also share a first page header size with everything marked “part.” So again, whatever “tenor sax” is assigned, I suspect trumpet, alto sax and lead sheet are assigned to the other option.

 

If not, you might consider posting an excerpt to be studied.

 

Beyond assigning “score” or “part,” score sets have no margin control. It’s a printer setting, really, and it affects only the display insofar as showing you with the page will look like.

 

The only work-around I can imagine — and it’s clunky — is assigning a unique staff to the parts’ first line and adjusting its height to accommodate each part printout independently. So you’d have staff styles like “tenor sax first line part,” “trumpet first line part,” etc. Then you’d splice the regions according to what falls to the parts’ first line and assign it that specialized score style. The height of these could be independently adjusted as staff styles as a kind of “faux part header” approach, having nothing to do with the purple line. Yeah, not fun, and it may play havoc with the conductor’s score.